For the Sake of Sanity
by BregoBeauty
Summary: After the red eye flight, Jackson is hospitalized and he reflects on Lisa. Nearby, Lisa reflects on who he was.
1. Part One: Logic

**For the Sake of…Sanity**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own anything related to _Red Eye_!

**Summary:** Jackson and Lisa reflect on each other. Part One: Jackson Rippner reflects on what could have been, had he been a different man. He knows that he could never have had Lisa Reisert, yet he can't stop thinking about her. Part Two: Lisa Reisert is surprised at her feelings when she is hit with news about Jackson.

**Part One: Logic**

_Beep…Beep…_

The machines surrounding him often interrupted his confused thoughts. It annoyed Jackson Rippner to no end, but he knew that the machines were to help him recover. If he were not so weak, he would have already removed himself from the annoying monitoring machines and smashed them into smithereens.

He smirked at the thought.

He would get his revenge against the infernal machines one of these days. It would be the only revenge that he would be getting. He had originally planned to get revenge upon the person responsible for his incapacitated condition. Lisa Reisert, the victim-turned-assailant, haunted his mind whether he was asleep or awake.

Jackson had eventually realized after plotting revenge after hare-brained revenge, that none of his plans would help him. He was infected with love for Lisa. He had always been attracted to her, which had invariably made his job ten-times harder. The hardest part was knowing that he had blown his one chance with her.

After what he had done to her, there was no way that she would stand to be around him. Not that he could blame her. He had, after all was said and done, threatened to kill her beloved father and nearly killed her in his blind rage. All over a stupid job that he had never wanted to take! When he lost his grip on his male-driven, fact-based logic, he lost Lisa for good. Any feelings that she might have reciprocated were gone forever once he snapped.

Yet, sorrow had filled her green eyes as he lay dying on the floor, thanks to the combined effort of her and her father. She could have kept going and shot him again…and again…to kill him. But she stopped and by doing so, gave him a few extra hours of life in which to think about her.

The punishment for failure in his line of work was death. Jackson would soon be dead and there was no sense in fighting the inevitable. There was nothing anyone could do about it.

Lisa had stopped him from hurting anyone else ever again. She had found his fatal flaw and used it against him. His feelings had turned against him and he let her get away.

He let her get away because he loved her. That's what that feeling was.

It was not your ordinary kind of love. No, this was obsessive, possessive love. Lisa was his, and no one else deserved her. She was his equal—she had proven it in their fight and on the plane. She was the first to defy him and to win. Not just win the deadly game she was playing, but to win the stone-cold, emotionless manager's heart.

By the time that the hit man came in to finish the job that Lisa had started, Jackson was ready to let go. He was ready to die and be alone with his thoughts as to what have might have been, but never would be.

Jackson would never be able to change, and he could have never been a different man. The life he led allowed for no regrets. He loved Lisa, but it did not change matters. He was an assassination manager, condemned to pay for his mistake, and she was the strong-willed, unwillingly victim of his scheme.

Happily ever after would never have been possible. Neither of them would have wanted it. Their relationship would not have been perfect—volatile would be a more appropriate word—and it would not have lasted. They were simply too different.

Even if he had not been a manager, they could never have been together.

Despite this knowledge, Jackson Rippner died with a smile upon his face. Peace had finally come, thanks to the woman with a field hockey stick.

**Author's Notes:**

These are just two related one-shots that I came up with. They are short little pieces, but hopefully reflect the strange attraction that is JacksonLisa. The way I see it, Jackson always liked her, but he knew that she would never be his. She likes him too, but his actions change everything. Enjoy!


	2. Part Two: Emotion

**For the Sake of…Sanity**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own anything related to _Red Eye_!

**Summary:** Jackson and Lisa reflect on each other. Part One: Jackson Rippner reflects on what could have been, had he been a different man. He knows that he could never have had Lisa Reisert, yet he can't stop thinking about her. Part Two: Lisa Reisert is surprised at her feelings when she is hit with news about Jackson's passing. Instead of happiness, she is full of sadness. She tries to remember the good times as she stands at his grave.

**Part Two: Emotion**

It had only been a quick segment on the news, yet it had hurt her all the same.

"In other news," the smartly dressed reporter on the TV droned on. "Suspect assassin, Jackson Rippner, has been pronounced dead. He passed away due to complications from injuries sustained during the attempt to assassinate Deputy Director of Homeland Security, Charles Keefe, and his family. Mr. Rippner was to face trial, and a possible jail term, had he recovered."

Lisa Reisert stopped breathing for a moment. Jackson Rippner was dead? How was that possible? The last time that she had asked the police about him (was it only an hour ago?), he had been recovering fine. Now, he was dead.

Why did she feel so saddened and crushed by this news? She should be happy and relieved. Now all she wanted to do was have a good cry.

Lisa did not sleep that night; she did not even try. She knew that she would get no rest. She had not slept at all since the red eye flight the previous evening. Not since Jackson knocked her unconscious with a head-butt.

The following morning, she applied a healthy amount of make-up to her face to hide the tell-tale circles under her eyes. She dressed in all black, out of respect, even though he had tried to kill her. Simple black high heels, a swishy black skirt, a black blouse, a blazer completed her mourning outfit. _Jackson would have approved_, she thought grimly as she stared in the mirror, conscious off all the bruises and cuts left from her fight with him.

She was the lone attendee of his solemn funeral. Only a few reporters flocked nearby, commenting on the turnout—or lack of. None of them dared to approach her in her grief. Surely, they wondered who she was and why she had come—she wished she knew the answer to that question herself—but they stayed far away, leaving her to witness the lowering of his closed casket.

Lisa had caught a glimpse of him before the highly polished wooden box had been closed. His brilliant blue eyes were closed in slumber and he had a genuine smile upon his pale face. His hair had been neatly parted and he was dressed in a fresh suit. He looked as she preferred to remember him—the kind stranger she had met in line, not the killer she had seen towards the end. The man she could have fallen in love with.

The grave was covered with the freshly dug earth and the reporters gradually faded, leaving her alone with her captor buried safely under six feet of ground. She kneeled beside the grave, and finally allowed the tears to come.

"What could we have done differently?" she wondered aloud. "Did it have to end like this? Why couldn't we have just been two strangers thrown together by chance? Why did you have to have that horrible job?"

_Jackson smiling, his blue eyes staring straight at her as they sat at the Tex-Mex bar. _

Lisa swallowed hard. She had tried to keep the memories at bay, but it was useless. Jackson had invaded her mind and he never left. Just because he was dead, it did not mean that he was gone for good. He would always linger.

He had been so deceptively charming. So likeable. He had begun to restore her faith in the male race only to destroy it. He blamed it on her female-based, emotion-driven feelings, but she had always secretly blamed it on him. What had transpired was his fault, not hers.

_"Are you stalking me?" he asked her._

How ironic. Jackson asking her if she was stalking him, when in reality, _he_ was the one doing the stalking. Eight weeks worth, he had told her later.

They had shared a laugh; a wonderful, abet short-lived laugh.

The concern and shock on his face after seeing her terrible scar. Before she had become increasingly driven in her fight against him. Before things had changed for the worse.

"Where any of those feelings real or I was just seeing things, Jackson? Am I going insane?" she asked the grave where he lay.

_He looked up at her as he lay on the floor, his crimson blood a stark contrast to the light green shirt he wore. He knew the end was near. He had accepted his fate._

She could have finished him off then, yet something stopped her. She felt sorrow, pity, among other feelings for him. She could not even bring herself to look at him. Part of her wanted him to die, yet another part was clinging to the image of a king man in an airport line that she trusted and wanted to get to know better.

A glance here, a glance there. She memorized the good times and blocked the fights. She spoke to the silent grave and wept for what could have been and what she wanted. No amount of tears would change his death. Jackson was dead and whatever feelings he had for her had died with him.

She needed to let go of her feelings. She may have loved him at one point, or loved what she thought was the real Jackson. The nice man that she had seen at first, not the killer that she knew he was.

"Good-bye, Jackson," she whispered, kissing the earth which was damp with her shed tears.

She could have sworn that a ghostly whisper said, "I'm sorry, Leese."

But it could have been just a wish, like her wayward emotions were. Her wish for a nice Jackson, not the man who meticulously stalked her and threatened her. The man she thought she knew, the man she may have loved, under different circumstances…

If things had been different, who knew? But this much was certain: there was no future for Lisa and Jackson. Despite her emotions crying that she had done something wrong, she knew in her heart that it would have never worked.

It was only thing that kept her sane in her grief.

**Author's Notes:**

Lisa's probably a little OOC, but she's been through a lot. She's confused and so was Jackson. I tried to highlight the differences in feelings (hence the 'Logic' and 'Emotion') and hopefully it worked. Please let me know what you think! I need to get out of the loony bin more, I swear, so I can stop having all this time to come up with stories. Being sick really screws with your mind. Enjoy!


End file.
